


Daffodils and Lillies

by ProphecyGirl



Category: Firefly
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drabble, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, Sibling Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-16
Updated: 2009-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 20:55:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17815367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProphecyGirl/pseuds/ProphecyGirl
Summary: Simon remembers.





	Daffodils and Lillies

Simon remembers.

When he first brought her aboard.

To ears that were used to her precise speech and well-formed thoughts, her incessant babbles had all seemed like gibberish. He wondered if there was any part of his sister remaining inside her pretty shell. Anything the Alliance had left behind.

He crept carefully to her bedside, staring down at her. He could almost hear her childish voice singing to him from a memory of a time and place far from here, aboard Serenity. On the run.

Moving quietly, the way he had when he was so much younger, he climbed into bed beside her and pulled her arm across his chest so she was holding him close. She smelled of daffodils and lilies, scents he always associated with secret gardens and rolling fields of wildflowers. With freedom.

Freedom. A concept that was now, as he laid next to her, completely foreign.

Sometimes when he lay alone at night he thought he could feel chains around his wrists, binding him to a future that was nothing if not uncertain.

Sometimes he almost wished he'd never rescued her. He imagined what it would be like to not be in hiding, forced to live as an outlaw for the rest of his undoubtedly short life. He couldn't fool himself into thinking that they would elude the Alliance until they died of old age.

But that was a horrible thought--to regret saving his own flesh and blood from a fate more terrible than most people could imagine. It kept him awake at night, wondering what they'd done to her. What, precisely, had been taken away that left her this way.

He clamped down hard on his thoughts, rather than let them consume him. Her arm was warm around him and she sighed lightly in her sleep, her lips moving as though she was talking.

He was a doctor; a man of science, and therefore not entirely prone to believing in fairy tales. But he felt that he ought to believe in something--be it fairy tales, God, or even just himself. Something--some _one_ \--had to have the power to help them through this. To bring his River back to him so that she might hold him close and kiss his forehead the way she used to.

He remembered something else, too. A dream she'd had--something about him talking to Kaylee and ignoring River. And how she thought she should leave the ship so people could be with who they wanted.

He didn't know how to explain to her that it was her. That it was always her. He'd given up everything for her, and he wouldn't do it for another soul in existence.

"You and me," he whispered quietly so as not to wake her.

He curled closer and let his eyes shut, the last sight before he dropped off being of her face--more peaceful in sleep than it ever was while she was awake.

It would always be just them.


End file.
